Nice submission! You probably won't hear anything new from me. I love how it felt like survivors! One performance thing that I'm sure you've heard, especially on web versions, you should limit the amount of monsters that can be spawned on at a time. Early game worked amazing however. Another thing(I might be the only one to have noticed this) I felt like I leveled up a bit slow? It could be that I just missed a bunch of orbs, but it felt slow to get new upgrades. Even with those gripes, your game was amazing. Amazing music and art. Make sure your whole team knows they did an amazing job!
It would be easy to say "same but more!" which would be great, because the core is great. Art is great, animations are clean. Hits are punchy. Music is fitting, not too repetitive.
But I would tighten and polish up the core even more first before adding anything so you know you have a perfect gameloop to work off of
One thing is the performance issues, do all instances have to follow player every step, or can they update their direction on an out-of-phase delay of maybe 5 frames or more? Maybe implement a system where if instance limit is reached it spawns bigger fires instead of a lot of small ones. Exp droplets seem to stick around, maybe they should despawn? I like the lighting system, is there a way to optimize it?
Next thing is the variety of the enemies. The fires are fine, it's a basic enemy, but the tree just seems to be the same thing with no mechanical differences. Maybe the tree having a significantly different attack or movement pattern would set it apart more from the basic enemy.
The difficulty also seems to ramp up too high for your own power to be able to match too early. This seems like it should be handled via stat adjustment first so that any additional weapons/abilities can be already based around a balanced system. Minor tweaks can go a long way here.
Probably the main thing I would say is there is nothing to shoot for on the map. It is mechanically barren other than the obstacles, so the strategy is just to make a big looping path for yourself with no goal. Maybe have some points of interest on the map that help you with your growth as a character or story progression?
All in all - Great start! I kept wanting to replay it, which means your game loop is pretty solid. Keep up the good work!
One thing is the performance issues, do all instances have to follow player every step, or can they update their direction on an out-of-phase delay of maybe 5 frames or more
It's so funny I'm surprised I haven't thought of that myself. I've implemented this feature before in previous games. Great catch! I'm definitely interested in pitches on helping performance out, this is a good one. I currently need to learn how to measure performance, so I can determine the value of good ideas like this one. All of your suggestions are good ones here.
This is a solid submission! The art and animations look stunning. The water claw feels very satisfying to use.
Mechanic wise I especially like the idea that these fiery enemies can ignite flammable obstacles. I would love to see you expand on this further. I was thinking that your own water based attacks could maybe quench the fire, giving the player more control over the environment or making it possible to give them something to protect.
... ignite flammable obstacles. I would love to see you expand on this further...
I so totally agree! We lost points on theming by not being able to make in time but we had similar discussions as a team. I'm glad I got to at least demonstrate the concept slightly using the hay bales.
Awesome game! I remember seeing the character art in the discord server. Already thought the character looked really nice back then. The game looks and feels very polished already.
Love the feel of the character with the water attack combined with the sound effect and the knock back on the enemies. The subtle lighting of the enemies is a nice touch as well. The music is a bop too.
Sorry for the late reply! As for the cons... I think it would be nicer to have the option to have attacks on the vertical axis as well. Not sure how you could implement this but the game felt very horizontal left and right.
A very well made game. I enjoyed the music in the background matching the environment of the game. The colors and shading was structured to feel the ambience of the environment. I was sad that there was not more.
We worked our butts off to the very end to make as much content as possible but unfortunately we got bogged down a bit, which I will blog about in an upcoming post-mortem devlog post!
PS the framerate dropped during late game lol
Yep! Framerate is a major bug we intend to patch, after the judging period is over.
I finished! I like the tension of all of the fire building up over time, and the unwinnable state in relation to that. Because you are small, and singular, and fire grows. Nice theming with that, even if it the unintentional consequence of not having time to implement more content I think it weaves in well with everything else.
I wish I could reread the beginning, I originally skipped it immediately and had to refresh the page so I could read it. I think it adds a lot.
I'm not sure if this is an issue on my end, but in the end credits there seems to be unloaded fonts which give symbols? Maybe I don't have something loaded, but I figure you likely know if it is.
Overall, I like it a lot. I wish I had a bit more control over where the water goes, but similar to the first point, I do think it works well with the theming of the stress and fear of being trapped in a fire.
Very fun game and well put together, I like the arrows indicating where the attacks will go so you can anticipate; and I really love the music. Great job!
Ahesteticaly pleasing! The soundtrack is top knotch! The take on the theme is quite touching as well. Really great job everyone! I can see this going places!
I don't usually like to dwell on the negative things, it's a game jam after all, there are limitations, time constraints, rules to follow and so on. Of course there is still room for improvement, for example adding more "weapons" or boons like a magical shield that prevents one damage. But I wouldn't call it a proper con. You did something great and should be proud of yourselves!
I really like the artstyle, and the impact the weapons feel they have. I also like the music it gives it a bit of tension. The story is a neat intro to the game as well.
For me personally knowing that the lvl up system was a last minute add it worked pretty decently. I would switch the colors so it fits more with the game and I like the extra weapons more than the just powerups as they change the playstyle a bit more. But as a last minute add, it did add quite some extra value to the prototype for sure. :D
"For me personally knowing that the lvl up system was a last minute add it worked pretty decently. ... But as a last minute add, it did add quite some extra value to the prototype for sure."
This was crucial for the build, no matter what level of detail, because the players needed to know why they were even collecting pickups at all!
You're right, I really zipped through that feature as fast as possible, and paid as much care as possible to upgrade weightings to give it a chance to function at least okay. With more time, we'd focus more on interesting counterplay, and less on the obvious fixes, like speed and pickup range, though some of those would still be in play.
What did you think of the critical hit system added in at the final hour? Do you think that added to the gameplay at all?
I personally am not the play-tester for that hahaha. I will always try to take an upgrade that is not about critical chances because you often do not notice the impact of those so even if they were in a game in a perfect state I would still try to avoid them.
No, your feedback is still super important. I feel roughly equivalent. Crit was one of the "less favorable" choices I peppered in to make things like speed up not always a guarantee. Sounds like it achieved that goal. haha.
It's fun following the games progress throughout the jam. I like the effect the additive lighting gives to large groups of enemies. Ramping up the intensity. Very enjoyable.
oh yeah, it's a combination of playing multiple SFX layered on top of each other, with variance pitch, and a nice crunchy sound. Glad you enjoyed that :)
Pretty fun game, would love a dash tho,but other then that its a neat game. i did manage to go until 5 minutes and then i had to quit the game cause then it started being to many enemies so i lagged like crazy xD. hope to se more of this game in the future.
I like that the game makes you want to stay close to enemies, even though it would be convenient to stay away from them. Very fun, I would play more :)
I like that the game makes you want to stay close to enemies, even though it would be convenient to stay away from them.
Yes! For that same reason, the pickup range is not very generous, forcing you to go into the fire, and back out. 20 Minutes till Midnight was an inspiration, which has some items like Blazing Speed requiring users get up and close to affect burn damage. I was definitely inspired by the Batgun, which was the most accessible way for me to play.
Love what's here so far! The story, aesthetic, and mood of the game is very compelling; and the water attacks had a good feel to them. Interested to see where this goes!
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Nice submission! You probably won't hear anything new from me. I love how it felt like survivors! One performance thing that I'm sure you've heard, especially on web versions, you should limit the amount of monsters that can be spawned on at a time. Early game worked amazing however. Another thing(I might be the only one to have noticed this) I felt like I leveled up a bit slow? It could be that I just missed a bunch of orbs, but it felt slow to get new upgrades. Even with those gripes, your game was amazing. Amazing music and art. Make sure your whole team knows they did an amazing job!
It would be easy to say "same but more!" which would be great, because the core is great. Art is great, animations are clean. Hits are punchy. Music is fitting, not too repetitive.
But I would tighten and polish up the core even more first before adding anything so you know you have a perfect gameloop to work off of
One thing is the performance issues, do all instances have to follow player every step, or can they update their direction on an out-of-phase delay of maybe 5 frames or more? Maybe implement a system where if instance limit is reached it spawns bigger fires instead of a lot of small ones. Exp droplets seem to stick around, maybe they should despawn? I like the lighting system, is there a way to optimize it?
Next thing is the variety of the enemies. The fires are fine, it's a basic enemy, but the tree just seems to be the same thing with no mechanical differences. Maybe the tree having a significantly different attack or movement pattern would set it apart more from the basic enemy.
The difficulty also seems to ramp up too high for your own power to be able to match too early. This seems like it should be handled via stat adjustment first so that any additional weapons/abilities can be already based around a balanced system. Minor tweaks can go a long way here.
Probably the main thing I would say is there is nothing to shoot for on the map. It is mechanically barren other than the obstacles, so the strategy is just to make a big looping path for yourself with no goal. Maybe have some points of interest on the map that help you with your growth as a character or story progression?
All in all - Great start! I kept wanting to replay it, which means your game loop is pretty solid. Keep up the good work!
One thing is the performance issues, do all instances have to follow player every step, or can they update their direction on an out-of-phase delay of maybe 5 frames or more
Great feedback and very thorough.It's so funny I'm surprised I haven't thought of that myself. I've implemented this feature before in previous games. Great catch! I'm definitely interested in pitches on helping performance out, this is a good one. I currently need to learn how to measure performance, so I can determine the value of good ideas like this one. All of your suggestions are good ones here.
This is a solid submission! The art and animations look stunning. The water claw feels very satisfying to use.
Mechanic wise I especially like the idea that these fiery enemies can ignite flammable obstacles. I would love to see you expand on this further. I was thinking that your own water based attacks could maybe quench the fire, giving the player more control over the environment or making it possible to give them something to protect.
... ignite flammable obstacles. I would love to see you expand on this further...
I so totally agree! We lost points on theming by not being able to make in time but we had similar discussions as a team. I'm glad I got to at least demonstrate the concept slightly using the hay bales.
Awesome game! I remember seeing the character art in the discord server. Already thought the character looked really nice back then. The game looks and feels very polished already.
Love the feel of the character with the water attack combined with the sound effect and the knock back on the enemies. The subtle lighting of the enemies is a nice touch as well. The music is a bop too.
Goodjob you guys
Thanks for playing! Glad you liked the art.
those are nice pros, but what about the cons?
Sorry for the late reply!
As for the cons... I think it would be nicer to have the option to have attacks on the vertical axis as well. Not sure how you could implement this but the game felt very horizontal left and right.
A very well made game. I enjoyed the music in the background matching the environment of the game. The colors and shading was structured to feel the ambience of the environment. I was sad that there was not more.
PS the framerate dropped during late game lol
I was sad that there was not more.
We worked our butts off to the very end to make as much content as possible but unfortunately we got bogged down a bit, which I will blog about in an upcoming post-mortem devlog post!PS the framerate dropped during late game lol
Yep! Framerate is a major bug we intend to patch, after the judging period is over.
I finished! I like the tension of all of the fire building up over time, and the unwinnable state in relation to that. Because you are small, and singular, and fire grows. Nice theming with that, even if it the unintentional consequence of not having time to implement more content I think it weaves in well with everything else.
I wish I could reread the beginning, I originally skipped it immediately and had to refresh the page so I could read it. I think it adds a lot.
I'm not sure if this is an issue on my end, but in the end credits there seems to be unloaded fonts which give symbols? Maybe I don't have something loaded, but I figure you likely know if it is.
Overall, I like it a lot. I wish I had a bit more control over where the water goes, but similar to the first point, I do think it works well with the theming of the stress and fear of being trapped in a fire.
Great job folks!
You're right! I'll make sure to let players go "Back" from the main menu to read the story crawl.
Yes, the font face doesn't have symbols for some of the Unicode, so I just left that unpolished.
Thanks for the kind words!
Very fun game and well put together, I like the arrows indicating where the attacks will go so you can anticipate; and I really love the music. Great job!
thanks a lot!!
Ahesteticaly pleasing! The soundtrack is top knotch! The take on the theme is quite touching as well. Really great job everyone! I can see this going places!
Thank you! My team (Rose and Lee) are amazing artists! I'm super lucky!
Any particular cons you'd like to mention though?
I don't usually like to dwell on the negative things, it's a game jam after all, there are limitations, time constraints, rules to follow and so on. Of course there is still room for improvement, for example adding more "weapons" or boons like a magical shield that prevents one damage. But I wouldn't call it a proper con. You did something great and should be proud of yourselves!
I won! I loved the music, very nice!
Really fun, and everything is great! just wish the start would be a little easier 😅
Really fun to play and I love the art style!
Thanks! Rose really knocked it out of the park.
I really like the artstyle, and the impact the weapons feel they have. I also like the music it gives it a bit of tension. The story is a neat intro to the game as well.
For me personally knowing that the lvl up system was a last minute add it worked pretty decently. I would switch the colors so it fits more with the game and I like the extra weapons more than the just powerups as they change the playstyle a bit more. But as a last minute add, it did add quite some extra value to the prototype for sure. :D
"For me personally knowing that the lvl up system was a last minute add it worked pretty decently. ... But as a last minute add, it did add quite some extra value to the prototype for sure."
This was crucial for the build, no matter what level of detail, because the players needed to know why they were even collecting pickups at all!
You're right, I really zipped through that feature as fast as possible, and paid as much care as possible to upgrade weightings to give it a chance to function at least okay. With more time, we'd focus more on interesting counterplay, and less on the obvious fixes, like speed and pickup range, though some of those would still be in play.
What did you think of the critical hit system added in at the final hour? Do you think that added to the gameplay at all?
Thanks for your valued feedback.
I personally am not the play-tester for that hahaha. I will always try to take an upgrade that is not about critical chances because you often do not notice the impact of those so even if they were in a game in a perfect state I would still try to avoid them.
No, your feedback is still super important. I feel roughly equivalent. Crit was one of the "less favorable" choices I peppered in to make things like speed up not always a guarantee. Sounds like it achieved that goal. haha.
It's fun following the games progress throughout the jam. I like the effect the additive lighting gives to large groups of enemies. Ramping up the intensity. Very enjoyable.
thank you! I obsessed over that for such a long time lol. It went through many many iterations.
What an awesome game! Really enjoyed the theming (art and sound) as well as the gameplay and animations. Well done!
Merci!
These are nice pros. Do you have any cons?
Great fun, loved how weighty the hits felt. ❤
oh yeah, it's a combination of playing multiple SFX layered on top of each other, with variance pitch, and a nice crunchy sound. Glad you enjoyed that :)
Pretty fun game, would love a dash tho,but other then that its a neat game. i did manage to go until 5 minutes and then i had to quit the game cause then it started being to many enemies so i lagged like crazy xD. hope to se more of this game in the future.
Haha yes. Definitely room for optimization in design and structure! Thanks for playing!
I like that the game makes you want to stay close to enemies, even though it would be convenient to stay away from them. Very fun, I would play more :)
I like that the game makes you want to stay close to enemies, even though it would be convenient to stay away from them.
Yes! For that same reason, the pickup range is not very generous, forcing you to go into the fire, and back out. 20 Minutes till Midnight was an inspiration, which has some items like Blazing Speed requiring users get up and close to affect burn damage. I was definitely inspired by the Batgun, which was the most accessible way for me to play.
Love what's here so far! The story, aesthetic, and mood of the game is very compelling; and the water attacks had a good feel to them. Interested to see where this goes!
Is there a end or is level 6 the max? I love the art style very cute. :) Would play more of it.
So, the jam isn't over yet! I'm working on more content! Just added a new build with simple level up system!
There is a little bit more content now! Not much, but it also lets the user know that it's not finished! :)
Fun horde fighting game, 7/7, would play again.
good 👍🏽 5/5 I especially liked the cat
Meow meow meow